Voter ID Plunges Forward in Pennsylvania, Mississippi and Alaska

December 13, 2012

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UPDATE 3:45 p.m.: Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court Judge Robert E. Simpson Jr. said that the new hearing to determine if Pennsylvania's photo voter ID law is constitutional will likely resume next summer with the intent to wrap it up by August, anticipating an appeal. Meanwhile, the judge is still deliberating whether he should extend the temporary injunction that blocked law for last month's election to also cover a May 2013 primary in the state. Judge Simpson said there may be a hearing to decide whether to extend the injunciton for May.

If you thought the voter ID saga was over, you’re unfortunately mistaken. The states that have been trying to push photo voter ID laws have not let up, and they are wasting no time with continuing to place restrictions on the vote. Pennsylvania and Mississippi took steps today to cement a voter ID future for upcoming elections. Meanwhile, Alaska is now in fresh pursuit of a photo voter ID law, even though voter fraud—the problem such laws portend to address—was not an issue in last month’s elections.

A quick look at how each of these states are plunging forward with the voter ID agenda:

Pennsylvania A state court temporarily blocked the photo voter ID law Governor Tom Corbett signed into law earlier this year, inactive only for November’s election though. This was the law that state Representative Daryl Metcalf said was going to deliver the state to Mitt Romney, and that “lazy” people didn’t deserve to vote if they couldn’t comply with it. The judge allowed the law to work for any election afterward, though, pending the outcome of a full trial on the constitutional merits of the law. A status conference was held today to determine when civil rights lawyers will return to court to argue with the state for a permanent ruling on if the law can stay in effect. ACLU attorney Vic Walczak told a Philly TV station, “The best result would be to extend the injunction until the courts can consider the heavy-duty constitutional issues involved here at an appropriate pace, rather than on a rocket docket.”

Mississippi Given this state is a covered jurisdiction under the Voting Rights Act’s Section 5, the photo voter ID law it passed last year must be precleared by the US Department of Justice to make sure it has neither a discriminatory purpose nor effect. It was not cleared in time for November’s election because DOJ needed further review. Today, Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann released the findings of an exit poll study that said 98 percent of voters have the photo ID needed to comply with the law. The survey polled 6,000 Mississippians on this past Election Day, asking them if they have one of the eight types of ID required of the law. Black voters represented 38 percent of those polled, and 84 percent of them answered that they had a driver’s license, compared with 97 percent of white voters. Overall, 97 percent of black voters had one of the eight IDs, compared to 99 percent of white voters. Of the 2 percent the study determined had no ID, over two-thirds of those were black.

Alaska African-Americans weren’t the only people who had to suffer through literacy tests to vote. When Congress finally extended citizenship to all American Indians in 1924, Alaska’s legislature responded by instituting an English-only literacy test requirement to vote, which lasted until 1975 when the Voting Rights Act made the state a Section 5 covered jurisdiction and abolished the tests. This week, Alaska joins Nevada, another state that has discriminated against its indigenous population, in proposing a photo voter ID law for the next election. Alaska also happens to be one of roughly a dozen states that has filed an amicus brief to overturn Section 5 in the upcoming US Supreme Court review of the Voting Rights Act. An Anchorage Daily-News editorial called the proposal “unnecessary” and wrote, “Adding a photo ID requirement will put on extra burden on those voters who live in remote parts of the state, where common sense already waives photo requirements for ID like driver’s licenses, and on others who may not have photo ID.”

Legislators have pretended that photo voter ID laws are needed to protect from voter fraud, but at a Pew Center conference recently GOP consultant Scott Tranter revealed their true intentions, when he said, “A lot of us are campaign officials—or campaign professionals—and we want to do everything we can to help our side. Sometimes we think that’s voter ID, sometimes we think that’s longer lines—whatever it may be.”

—Brentin Mock

Brentin MockTwitterBrentin Mock covers national politics for Colorlines. He previously served as lead reporter for Voting Rights Watch 2012, covering the challenges presented by new voter ID laws, suppression of voter registration drives and other attempts to limit electoral power of people of color.
Brentin is also a contributor for Demos’ blog PolicyShop, where he covers voting rights and civil rights; and also a blogger for Grist.org, where he writes about environmental justice. You can read some of his other work at Next American City, Facing South, The Root, In These Times, American Prospect and The Washington Post.

Voting Rights WatchIn-depth coverage of voter suppression efforts nationwide from Brentin Mock and Aura Bogado, in partnership with Colorlines.com.
Brentin Mock is a New Orleans–based journalist who serves as lead reporter on Voting Rights Watch, covering the challenges presented by new voter ID laws, suppression of voter registration drives, and other attempts to limit electoral power of people of color. In his previous position as senior editor at The Loop 21, Brentin also covered electoral politics with a significant amount of reporting on voter ID issues.
In New Orleans, Brentin also works as web editor for the online, citizen-journalist driven blogsite Bridge the Gulf and helped launch the New Orleans online investigative news site The Lens. He previously worked at The American Prospect as a reporter and blogger covering environmental justice issues through a fellowship awarded by the Metcalf Institute for Environmental Reporting. Brentin also served on the staff of the national magazine Intelligence Report, published by Southern Poverty Law Center, investigating hate groups and anti-immigrant nativist extremists.
Brentin's professional career began in his native city of Pittsburgh, working as managing editor of the African-American community newspaper Renaissance News before joining the staff of the alternative newsweekly Pittsburgh City Paper. His work has been published in GOOD, the Root, the Daily Beast, Newsweek.com, the Grio, The Atlantic, Next American City, Truthout.org, Alternet, Vibe.com, XXL, The Source and Religion Dispatches.
Follow Brentin at @bmockaveli.
Aura Bogado is the community journalism coordinator and blogger for Voting Rights Watch 2012. Aura has reported in Spanish and English from Mexico, Peru, Argentina, and the United States. Her work has been published in Mother Jones, Newsweek Argentina, AlterNet, and The Huffington Post. With the support of the Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute, she conducted an in-depth examination on the consequences of immigration enforcement by local police in Arizona.
Aura has worked as a national host and producer for the Pacifica Radio network. While there, she also coordinated a media literacy and training program for youth of color in Los Angeles with a grant from the California Technology Foundation. She was a founding member of 33+1/3 Books Collective, an independent bookstore and gallery in Los Angeles. In 2006, City Lights Books published The Other Campaign, which featured her exclusive interview with Subcomandante Marcos, his first in five years.
She earned her B.A. from Yale University, majoring in American Studies. An immigrant from South America of indigenous (Guarani) decent, she is currently based in New York, and plays son jarocho music in her spare time.
Follow Aura at @zapallita.